I went to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and was, of course, subjected to a barrage of trailers prior to the showing of the movie. Totally expected.
Totally unexpected? Titanic. Apparently, we can now relive the magic as it is being rereleased to movie theaters this spring.
I don’t have an opinion about the quality of this movie, because I have never seen it. It came out in 1997, which means it was released right on the heels of my parents’ deaths, my losing the house, the pets dying, and myself being destitute. As another mourner snapped to someone in the grief USENET group I haunted, “why would I want to see a shipwreck when my whole life is one?”
Indeed.
But on top of the bad timing, this speaks to something else that I think mourners know: death is not romantic. The whole movie is paean to a woman’s grief over the loss of her lover. The underlying message is that their love was perfect and will always be perfect because one of them died, and that no one else will ever match the survivor’s passion for her dead lover no matter how long she lives.
Quite frankly, I take umbrage with that. Yes, I know, that sets me against the whole romance genre, but I’m okay with that. I think those concepts are broken anyway.
The fact is, death is traumatic, not romantic. Not ever is it romantic – heroic, certainly, and sometimes epic or poetic or even inspiring. Romantic? Fuck no.
It is also a cheat to the survivors to suggest that because this one person died, they will never know true happiness ever again. We know that it is impossible to recapture a relationship that has died, and that loss might even break our souls. I can certainly say that I will never share the closeness I had with my parents with any other person (except possibly my own child if I ever have one). They are dead and my relationships with them are definitively over. I hesitate at the implication that because of that, I will never know an equal happiness.
Different? Absolutely. Of course! But I have survived, which means I have the opportunity to keep loving and growing and sharing my life. I would rather cling to that than a life preserver made of grief.
